


Take That as a Maybe

by MDJensen



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, Sick Steve, Stressed Steve, bed sharing, discussion of chronic illness, tw vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 06:00:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17278421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MDJensen/pseuds/MDJensen
Summary: Steve's having nightmares, after the cocoon. Danny angry-cares for him.(Belated) 9x01 coda.





	Take That as a Maybe

He dreams of the cocoon. How could he not? Dreams of the disconnect from his own body; dreams of dry, tube-fed air and the sharp smell of the putty that plugged his ears and nose.

Dreams of the air tubes rupturing. Of drowning only inches under the water because his arms and legs are bound.

He dreams as well of getting out. Of fighting, body still and mind groggy; dreams of overpowering the technicians, or Wo Fat, demanding to know who the mole is. Of course they never tell him. But in one final playthrough, the mole comes forward—steps around the corner into the lab, gives herself up to Steve’s judgement.

And the mole— is _Doris_?

Steve wakes.

He’s in his bed, in his room, not alone; Danny insisted on staying, which isn’t rare, but he insisted on sleeping in Steve’s room, which is. It’s like he’s got a hierarchy for these things. Staying for dinner is stage one, crashing on the couch stage two—sleeping in Steve’s room is stage three, and they’ve only gotten there a few times before.

So, apparently, Danny thinks this is bad. And maybe, objectively speaking, it is, but Steve’s too damn tired to mull it over. Tired and sore and more than a little sick. And now he’s having Doris nightmares, which is probably proof that this is indeed bad, but which also has drained him even further, until all he can possibly do is sleep again.

With the last strength he has, he rolls over to see Danny—and chokes. In this darkness of the room he can barely make out the features of the person beside him, but they’re wrong: sharper, darker, meaner—

Black eyes flash open. And Steve finds himself pinned under Wo Fat’s gaze—

*

Steve comes awake to daylight, filling the room and showing him not Wo Fat but Danny, slack-jawed with sleep beside him.

The relief is enormous, though he can’t stay in it for long. He’d been queasy earlier, had hoped to sleep it off, but in just those first few seconds of consciousness it is clear that he has not slept it off in the slightest. If anything the nightmares have probably made it worse.

So he clumsily tumbles out of bed and into the bathroom, where his hands find the cold ceramic of the sink. Yeah, no good denying it: he’s definitely going to puke. He holds himself as steady as he can while inside his stomach starts churning, heaving, sending ominous shivers up his back, down his legs.

He leans forward and surrenders.

He hasn’t eaten in a while now—which, yes, was a bad idea, but they seriously got home at like 0400— so all that comes up is a combination of orange Gatorade and stomach acid. It still tastes a lot like Gatorade, which somehow makes it worse. For a couple minutes all Steve can do is hang over the sink and let the sweetly sour liquid gush from his mouth, dribble from his nostrils.

But eventually the nausea fades. He spits, tamps down willfully on the leftover gagging; then he runs the sink without turning on the light because, honestly, he doesn’t need the visual.

He splashes the water on his face, too, and rinses his mouth. Decides that’s good enough because, first of all, he is exhausted, and second of all, it really was mostly just Gatorade. He _should_ brush his teeth, but he doesn’t _have_ to.

Although apparently that’s up for debate.

“You serious?” Danny croaks, as Steve leaves the bathroom. “Brush your teeth, you’re disgusting.”

“’m fine, thanks,” Steve snaps. Because damn, he doesn’t need to be _fussed_ over or anything, but he did just slog through five solid minutes of vomiting after two or three solid hours of nightmares, so a little compassion wouldn’t hurt.

Still he turns around, does as he’s told.

When he comes out for the second time, Danny has maybe caught the drift, because he’s sitting up now. Steve crawls into bed and plops, cross-legged, beside him.

“How you feelin’?” Danny prompts, as Steve lets his aching head drop into his hands.

“Eh. ‘m okay now.”

“What was that, was that like a—like a stress—thing?”

Like a panic attack? Nah, not nearly bad enough for that.

“Don’t think so,” he says, aloud. “Haven’t eaten inna while. Stomach’s prob’ly mad at me f’r that.”

“Wow. Such hardy stock.”

Okay, more needling, and Steve feels himself scowl. He’s only barely recovered from radiation poisoning, and he still takes a fistful of pills daily: immunosuppressants and antidepressants and various other -pressants for the side effects of these and so yeah, okay, he’s not as robust as he used to be. No use in denying it.

“D’dn’t take my meds with food, an’ ‘m s’pposed to,” he mumbles. “Should eat somethin’ before I go back to sleep.”

Danny grunts. “Eggs ‘nd toast?”

And yeah, there’s some part of Steve that wants nothing more than to say yes, to let Danny make him tummyache food like he would for his six-year-old, not only because it sounds easily digestible but because the whole notion makes him feel protected. Safe.

“Keep some bars up here,” he says, tone neutral. “’m jus’ gonna give it a minute.”

Danny sighs; that’s the last noise either of them makes for a while. Head still in his hands, eyes closed, Steve drifts a little, though nothing he’d really call _sleep_.

“You wanna talk about it?” Danny asks, finally.

Steve hauls himself upright. “Nah.”

“You sure?”

“It wasn’t as big as—as you’re making it out to be.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I mean, it wasn’t pleasant. But it wasn’t so bad.”

“ _Sensory deprivation_. Even the name sounds bad.”

“More boring, for the most part. I took a nap.”

“I’m sorry, you took a nap?”

“I couldn’t move. Didn’t think it would hurt to rest, and I figured anything that could make the time go faster’d be an advantage.”

“You took a nap,” Danny repeats, sighing. “While being tortured.”

“I wasn’t exactly being waterboarded,” Steve replies; realizing too late that he’s kind of snapped out the words.

“So then, what happened at the end?”

Now it’s Steve’s turn to sigh. Because yeah, he lasted a pretty long time, but still succumbed eventually.

“My brain did exactly what it was expected to do. Floundered. Subbed in anything it could for the missing input. Played me a nice highlight reel.”

“Whaddya mean, highlight reel?”

“I saw Wo Fat,” Steve admits, saying it out loud for the first time. “He was the one behind it all, and—he was the one in the lab, after. And I died. They say you can’t die in a dream, but I guess you can in an hallucination, because. I was dead.”

“Wow.”

“Yup. Yeah.”

Danny pauses. “And, speakin’ of dreams—seems like you were havin’ some of those too, just now.”

“Pretty much more of the same. Seein’ Wo Fat again. Myself, back in the cocoon. Um. Not to mention I saw Doris as the mole. She’d given me up to him.”

“Jesus.” Steve’s mildly surprised to hear a snort of laughter. “You cannot fucking catch a break, can you?”

The tension eases a little, and Steve heaves another sigh; he tips sideways and lets his head rest on Danny’s shoulder, which is solid and familiar. He stays a minute or two before pulling away.

It finally feels like he could keep something solid down, so Steve digs through his nightstand drawer for a meal bar and another Gatorade (not orange, luckily). Braces himself, and starts in on the food, mechanically.

Even this is different, he muses; ten years ago he’d chosen food based on which had the best nutrition and the least empty calories. Now it’s whatever won’t leave him bloated or crampy. He tries not to sink deeper into gloominess at this thought; just focuses on finishing the food. At his side, Danny’s checking his phone.

Swallowing the last of it, Steve notes the time on Danny’s screen; it’s nearly 0700, which he’d guessed from the lighting anyway, but seeing it makes it official. Honestly, he’s not sure it’s even worth it to sleep more. His body wants it; part of his mind wants it too, but he’ll probably just have more nightmares. At the moment, it hardly feels worth it. He drinks the last of the Gatorade and chucks the trash onto his nightstand, a little harder than necessary.

“You gettin’ up, or sleepin’ more?”

“Still deciding. What are you doing?”

“The fuck do you think I’m doin’? Gonna sleep ‘til noon.”

There’s a little bubble in his throat, which Steve assumes to be a burp; he lets it up before answering.

It’s a bad decision.

Because the next thing Steve knows, he’s thrown up a little in his mouth.

He shuts his eyes. Swallow hard a few times in a row, banishing scratchy little pieces of undigested granola; when it finally feels safe to, he clears his throat.

“I hate this.”

Danny’s voice is quiet; Steve turns to find him staring openly.

“You didn’t have to stay the night,” Steve rasps.

“I hate it,” Danny says again, instead of replying. “You’re sick, Steve. You have chronic medical conditions and you need to stop pretending that you’re who you were fifteen years ago.”

“Thank you for the reminders.”

“It didn’t have to be you who let yourself get captured. Junior could have. _I_ could have.”

“So, just because I’m not at one hundred percent, I have to send somebody else to go through that?”

“Well, why should it have to be you? Why should it have to be you?”

“Are you actually getting upset with me right now?”

“Getting— I’ve been upset with you nonstop! For over eight years now!”

Steve sniffs, hard. His nose stings and his mouth tastes like acid and his head is starting to pound, pretty badly.

“You know,” he says, tightly, “how I thought this would go, I thought I’d have the nightmares. Wake up. And you’d, you’d— hug me or something. Maybe rub my back a little. Comfort, y’know?”

“If you were acting like a normal person, I’d be acting like a normal person. You wanna cry? I’ll hold you. We’ve been there a hundred times. But you’re not crying. You’re sitting there writing this off. And that’s stupid, so I’m telling you so!”

Steve rubs his forehead; it doesn’t help. “I don’t wanna have this conversation.”

“What conversation? You’re barely saying anything. You accuse of me not comforting you enough, but you’re the one sayin’ this isn’t a big deal. So which one is it? Because if I’m right and if this is a big deal, I want you to take that, and I want you to understand, how fucking scared I was, when you were in there, and how—how _angry_ I am, that you—”

“Shut up.”

“—rush into these situations, and yes, I know the situation was personal, but—”

“Shut _up_.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up, what’s the matter with you?”

“ _I don’t feel well, Danny_!”

He hadn’t meant to shout; he shouted anyway. For a moment Danny sits stock-still, visibly processing this. Then his expression softens.

“Babe,” he sighs. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t.”

“You want me to cry about it, I can _fucking_ cry about it!” Still kind of shouting.

“Hey, stop. I said I’m sorry. Don’t cry, seriously, you’ll break my fuckin’ heart.”

“’m not.”

“Okay. Good.”

Fresh silence. Steve puts his head in his hands again and listens to Danny crack his neck, his back, his knuckles. “I’m gonna sleep some more,” he announces, eventually. “You should too.”

“Yeah,” Steve gets out. “I should.”

“Okay. Hey, lie down, okay? No—closer, you goof, I’m gonna rub your back.”

Steve raises his head, catches Danny’s eyes. Finds perfect sincerity there.

With a groan he shifts himself under the covers and settles, facing away.

Danny moves a little closer, pulls the top blanket to Steve’s chin. Then, under the covers, one hand finds Steve’s shoulder and starts massaging gently.

Steve closes his eyes. His head sinks lower against the pillow as he lets himself marvel at the existence of this touch, this thing that is meant solely for his comfort. A couple of hours ago he’d been desperate to feel even pain. That he should be so privileged as to feel this instead—it honestly seems a little bit like a miracle.

Tension dissolves. And anxiety, and frustration, and anger with Danny—who, let’s be honest, isn’t the world’s calmest soul but never has anything less than good intentions towards him. Danny just wants him to be safe, and why? Because Danny fucking _cares_ about him.

All the comfort flooding his body, though, isn’t enough for Steve to ignore the creeping heat in his throat; he’s not nauseous anymore, but his stomach is miserably sour, and with honest regret he pushes himself upright.

“You okay?”

“Can’t lie down,” Steve mumbles, rubbing his chest and really hoping Danny catches his drift and doesn’t make him actually talk about the reflux he’s got going on right now.

Danny does. Without another word he settles himself upright again, back to the headboard; then he takes Steve’s pillow and tucks it over his shoulder. “Hey, c’mere. You’re okay; we can sleep like this. ‘m tired enough to sleep on the floor right now.”

Steve wants to sob with relief, that even though the back-rubbing thing didn’t work out, he can still have Danny against him. Still feel the warmth, reminding him that he’s _right here_. Right here, nowhere near the cocoon.

It takes a moment to arrange, but before long Steve finds himself slumped against Danny’s side, pillow between his head and Danny’s chest, and Danny’s arm around his back. Short nails scratch idly through Steve’s t-shirt. And yeah his spine’s going to end up a little twingey from sleeping like this, but it’s no worse than his neck would hurt if he slept upright on his own.

“You okay?” Danny asks, softly. Steve’s too close to sleep to do anything more than hum in response.

“I’ll take that as a maybe,” Danny sighs, and bows his head until it rests atop Steve’s.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, Steve's upset. What a novel plot for me. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed, despite this being three months late.


End file.
